Journal of AHIMA - October 2011

Word from Washington the security components required. We must recognize the direction the federal government and the industry are taking so that we can explain the move to patient-centered healthcare and our need to give patients access to information and collect information in real time so it is available 24/7 for clinicians and patients alike.

Other Stories: A New Global Role for AHIMA

The American National Standards Institute (ANSI) has appointed AHIMA the designated secretariat for the International Organization for Standardization’s 215 Technical Advisory Group (TAG) and US TAG Administrator. As the secretariat, AHIMA will manage healthcare-related ISO standards that will affect US healthcare now and in the years to come.

This role integrates with other standards work AHIMA is involved with, including mapping SNOMED CT to ICD- 10. These standards will make their way into future meaningful use criteria and become embedded in the EHR systems you will be working with in just a few years.

As a major actor in this standards story, AHIMA is making sure that HIM principles and practices are embedded into the standards. In these and other standards activities, we are also working hard to ensure consistency in coding, uniform quality measures, harmonized standards and terminologies, and uniform guides needed in this standards-based practice that we have promoted for decades and now see coming at us at a very rapid pace.

AHIMA has also been very engaged in the Health Level Seven standards development body, working to ensure HIM practices are embedded in standards. Our engagement continues to increase. In 2012 AHIMA’s vice president of practice leadership, Don Mon, will become the chair of HL7. More HIM-related standards are coming, including those to ensure the legal EHR. This activity is bringing us closer to the type of EHR we have sought since the 1980s.

Our work individually as professionals and collectively as a profession is not done. If you haven’t started, I invite you to write new chapters in your HIM story. ¢

Dan Rode ( dan.rode@ahima.org) is AHIMA’s vice president of policy and government relations.

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